Amazing Grace

“It’s still hard to believe that Aretha Franklin is really gone. Especially when she feels so alive in every frame of Amazing Grace - a concert documentary brought to the screen with every bead of sweat, every spangle, every soul-squeezing note intact. Shot over two days in January 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, Grace has no real visual glory: The venue looks dusty, with rows of rickety chairs sometimes only half full... But the humbleness of the setting feels right; this is Franklin’s spiritual home, and her gospel - Wholy Holy, How I Got Over, Never Grow Old - needs no adornment. There’s a cumulative power, too, in seemingly mundane details: the mustachioed member of the choir lost in a high note, his body trembling as a tear runs down his cheek; Mick Jagger clapping in a back pew, an awed grin on his face; Aretha’s dapper preacher father, gently mopping his daughter’s brow. It’s all so immersive that it starts to feel less like a movie than a time machine - the gift of one last grace note from the Great Beyond.” - Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly